Last Minute Christmas Sewing and some mitered corners tricks!

I'm still working on a few Christmas Projects. 

This just needs some binding and it'll be a cute potholder.

And it even has a recipe!

Did you see this table runner?

I love this 9 patch Table Runner made by Sherri McConnell of a Quilting Life.  She has a great free tutorial that is easy to follow.  Click anywhere here to go to her tutorial if you want to make one.

 Here are my versions in more traditional colors, in process:

9 Patch Table Runners

I was so excited today.  I have long been admiring mitered corners especially with striped borders!  I've read numerous tutorials on the subject but have been too imtimidated to try it.  I don't know why I got brave today! I just got this striped gold metalic fabric from Connecting Threads (on sale) and it's perfect for the border (and thank goodness because everything else I tried looked terrible!)

I was pretty surprised to see that this corner turned out well!

The trick seems to be:  to sew your border on and then line up the 45 degree line along the bottom of the sewn edge and make a diagonal cut as shown above and in the next photo.  (Note:  I cut two 2" strips the width of the fabric and cut a 45 degree angle on one end and sewed that onto the first side.)

 

The other trick is to stop and start sewing 1/4 " from the end (I remembered that from one of the tutorials I read but don't remember whose tutorial it was-- maybe Saltwater Quilts?  Yes, I just checked and she has a good tutorial, except I didn't want to waste so much fabric because she has you cut your borders much longer than I found to be necessary).

Here I'm pulling the corner down because I'm going to line up the upper border with right sides together as you'll see in the next photo.  (The diagonal was already cut from one of the other edges.)

Again:  when I begin sewing, I'll start and end 1/4" from the edges.  I forgot to take a picture of sewing the mitered corners together but it wasn't too hard.  Just line up the mitered edges and sew up to (or almost up to) where you've already sewed but don't sew over your previous stitching.

Each corner turned out pretty good!

Ready for Quilting.  I placed the backing and top right sides together and with the batting on the bottom, sewed all together around the edges, leaving  4 inches open for turning.

I top stitched a scant 1/4" form the edge and did some free motion quilting.  I wanted to leave the striped border without quilting but it was looking distorted so had to do some stitching there to make it lay more smoothly.

I guess I should call it, "Glitter Red and Gold Table Runner".  I wonder if I made the backing very slightly smaller than the front if it would lay more smoothly?

 Finishing up the Row Houses Christmas Quilt.

Finishing up the Machine Quilting

This was the first time I was able to go from edge to edge and not have to finish up on the small machine.  The tension was good but I did have quite a bit of trouble with the thread breaking.

Quilting all complete and ready for binding.

Quilted with red thread.

Red, green, and cream colors.

Binding complete.

Still toying with label making.  Maybe if I had a different printer it would turn out better.